I am reminded of a line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which Xander says to Cordelia:
“Do you know what’s a good day to break up with someone? Any day except Valentine’s Day!”
Today, the network that refers to itself as “The WB” (note the caps) gave the official V-Day kiss-off to Angel, the Buffy spin-off, which coincidentally just had the character of Cordelia appear for the last time.
02.14.04
press release
IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT ANGELA statement from The WB:
For the last seven years Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been cornerstones of our network. The sum total of the work done on those shows has produced some of the proudest moments in our history. Like some of the great series that are leaving the air this year, including Frasier and Friends, the cast, crew, writers and producers of Angel deserve to be able to wrap up the series in a way befitting a classic television series and that is why we went to Joss to let him know that this would be the last year of the series on The WB. We have discussed continuing the Angel legacy with special movie events next year, which is still on the table. In a perfect world, all of these details would be completed before this information went to the press so that we could be definitive about the show’s ongoing future. But in any case, we did not want to contemplate this being the last year of Angel without giving the show the option of crafting their own destiny for this character and for this series. David Boreanaz continues to be one of the finest, classiest and friendliest actors we have had the pleasure to work with and we hope that the relationship furthers from here. The same can be said for all the actors and producers on the show.(SOURCE: The WB)
“…I mean, what, were you running low on dramatic irony?” Xander, “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered”
A longer article appeared yesterday in Zap2It (on another fine day known as Friday the Thirteenth.) Zap2It reports:
“It’s official enough to know it’s real,” David Greenwalt, who co-created the series with Joss Whedon, tells Zap2it.com, “but I haven’t talked to anybody at the network or the studio. I can tell you that it’s real, that it makes Mr. Whedon and myself very sad, that we wish it had kept going and we thought it was only getting better.
“Joss and [executive producer]Jeff Bell told the cast and crew today. We have no understanding of the inner workings of the corporate world, but we’ve had a long and fruitful relationship with [producing studio] 20th Century Fox and The WB, for which we are grateful. We just wish it could have gone on forever. Apparently, it’s not going to.
“Joss literally called me this morning; so it’s very new.”
My take is that it’s not a done deal. A number of cult series were resurrected from the dead by the work of fans after such announcements. Most recently, SciFi Channel’s cancelled series Farscape, was brought back by a well-organized and orchestrated campaign under the banner of SaveFarscape.com
Inspired by that group, I have registered a domain name to help keep the show going: “SaveAngel.org” — more information as it develops!
